Silvia Casolari

The Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo by Emilio de' Cavalieri offers yet other interesting aspects for research: the symbolical personifications transmitted by important historical sources of its iconography. In fact the verses of the Rappresentatione, describing all aspects of the personifications, correspond exactly to the allegorical subject treated by painters such as Caravaggio, Tiziano, F. Zuccari, and by interpreters of iconographic symbolism such as C. Ripa, V. Cartari, P. Valeriano. Moreover, they are also related to the literaly tradition of Petrarch, and with the teaching of Father Agostino Manni, included in his Essercitii Spirituali and Ethica Christiana, both directly preceding the Rappresentatione. Historical criticism has ably defined the pedagogical role of this refined 'sermon in music' which is related to the salvation of the soul as pursued by the Roman devotion of the Congregazione filippina dell'Oratorio.The aim of this article is to draw from iconography suggestions for the staging (scenes, costumes, instrumental ensemble), which could improve the visual aspect of the original performance of the opera. The symbolism, according to a Christian interpretation of Plato, unifies in the Rappresentatione text, music and scene setting. Iconographical research underscores how music, preaching and imagery were all instruments of the Oratorio filippino.

Amalia Collisani

Umorismo di Rossini

The two major sacred compositions written by Rossini during his maturity, Stabat Mater and Petite Messe Solennelle, are considered as the beginning and end of an existential journey through which humour becomes gradually more relevant. Three critical essay, one on the Stabat Mater by Heine and two on humor by Luigi Pirandello and Sigmund Freud, written during different periods of time and intellectual history, are used as instruments to define Rossini's particular humour and its formal features.Heine's essay, Rossini and Mendelssohn, throws light on the perplexities caused by the first performances of the Stabat Mater, and suggests that his contemporaries considered that the humoristic vein was discordant with the sacred meaning of the text. Besides ingenuity (which in a Schillerian sense is essential for a religiousness deeply rooted in nature and free from stereotyped conventions and intellectual lucubrations), Heine also shows the inconsistencies which reveal the contrivances and create distance between the artist and his works: these features form the basis for taking humour as artistic realization of the philosophical definition of irony, which a few years earlier had been expressed during Romanticism.The essay by Pirandello suggests a relationship between romantic irony and literary humour. He also studies the humoristic literary style and defines its formal features, i.e. fragmentariness, discontinuity, contrasts: a type of analysis suitable for music and in particular for Rossini's compositions. In Stabat Mater, the stylistic discontinuities concern the macrostructure, i.e., amongst the different pieces and sections of the single piece. On the other hand, in Petite Messe, fragmentariness and discontinuity concern especially the microstructure: melody and harmony are opposed to rhythm used as an instrument of stylisation and objectification in different ways.The essay by Freud treats the psychological aspect. On this basis, one could explain the lack of Rossini's production, during his years of silence, as a therapeutical journey through which he passes from making fun about his own artistic means to being auto-ironical about using them. At the end of this journey, the Petite Messe is a challenge and a triumph: contrivance and banality live together, spaced and objectified by rhythmical pattern. Once again Rossini is able to face a masterpiece and to create a language more modern and incisive than the romantic one which had annoyed and inhibited him.

Marta Columbro - Eloisa Intini

Congregazioni e corporazioni di musici a Napoli tra Sei e Settecento

The article analyses the activities of the musical congrations and corporations in Naples, in the period between the end of the Seventeenth and the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, such as the Congregation of Beatissima Vergine Maria, working in the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, the corporations of trumpeters and 'sonatori di corde, di balli', in the Chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Congregation of Santa Cecilia, and so on. They all worked contemporaneously both in the theatres and in the Conservatories of Naples, the principal european capital of music. The article underscores their organization, self-management, the way they assigned work and gained opportunity to perform, and also the relationship among all the musical institutions of the city.To assure their survival, the rules of the congregations imposed a strict hierarchy. The relarionship between art, religion and political authorities has also been indicated: the influence of the ecclesiastic authority, at the beginning very important, weakened with the loss of all privileges and led the way to the secularization of art. The work presented here is the result of research on unpublished archival documents (notary deeds, contracts, etc.), which make clear that Naples was an important capital of music, not only of opera but of many other musical genres which, although widespread, have not yet been given sufficient attention.

Marcello Conati

The chronicle of Marie Antoinette, a subject that Puccini studied for a long time but in the end gave up, seems to have lasted about ten years, from November 1897 to Summer 1907. The composer was truly interested in it only during the years 1905-1907, that is immediately after Madama Butterfly. The subject, proposed by the impresario Schürmann in November 1897, was not disregarded by Puccini; in fact, although at the time he was composing Tosca, he informed Illica of the subject. Illica at first conceived it as a great historical fresco - from Marie Antoinette's engagement until her death - but it was quite difficult to arrange for an opera. Puccini put aside the subject, but did not drop it completely. (In the meantime, Giulio Ricordi proposed the same to Mascagni, who dropped it after waiting uselessly for an outline of the libretto from Illica). After Madama Butterfly, Puccini again considered the subject, transforming it into a drama of a 'lonely woman'. As in his previous operas, Puccini took for granted the cooperation of Giuseppe Giacosa. The sudden death of the Piedmontese writer in 1906, however, did not discourage the composer: in 1907 Puccini made drastic changes to the subject, reducing the great historical fresco planned by Illica to the last tragic period of Marie Antoinette's life. The opera, L'Austriaca, was meant to have had only three parts or acts: La prigione, Il giudizio, Il supplizio (imprisonment, the trial, conviction) in which the unhappy queen was the sole protagonist. During Summer 1907, unhappy with Illica's work (he had written only the first act and just begun to arrange the scenes of the second and third acts) but enthusiastic about The Girl of the Golden West, a drama by Belasco, Puccini gave up the subject and terminated his long collaboration with Illica (begun with Manon Lescaut). The Appendix offers a transcription of the first act of Maria Antonietta, interesting because of the many notes made in the margins, most of them reflections of Puccini's suggestions.

Francesco Cotticelli

Based on archival documents kept in Naples and in Vienna, the text focuses on the last years (1724-1734) on the Neapolitan Teatro di San Bartolomeo, the main opera hous in southern Italy at that time. In spite of the outstanding success fo celebrated musicians and librettists (such as Pergolesi and Metastasio), its life and staging activities seem to have deeply influenced by the institutional contrast which broke out between the Casa Santa degli Incurabili, the hospital in charge of the ius repraesentandi, and the Uditore dell'Esercito, the major spokesman of the government's attempts to control the public stage life and economy. His comptent interest int eh sophisticated structure of the administration system reveals the new contemporary consciousness of the cultural value of theatre, the fundamental discovery of the early eighteenth century Naples after decades of moral condemnation and prejudices against singers, actors and actresses.

Pier Giuseppe Gillio

In the verse forms of literary Italian poetry from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth centuries the septenarius varies according to the position of the first stress: the first type has accents on the second, the fourth, and the sixth syllabe (iambic septenarius of the first type); the second has accents on the first, the fourth, and the sixth syllable (iambic septenarius of the second type); the third has accents on the third and the sixth syllabe (anapestic septenarius of the third type).The librettos of the seventeenth century were also initially written in these three meters, both the recitatives and the arias. But from the early 1680s the anapaestic septenarius was excluded from most of the arias, and limited only to the recitatives (this new tendency is apparent notably in the librettos of Matteo Noris and Giulio Cesare Corradi). This practice went through alternate phases in the following decades, until it became the accepted norm in the work of Metastasio. In fact here the exclusive use of the operatic septenarius of the iambic type was finally endorsed. This stylistic choice on the part of the major librettist of the century later became law for religions of disciples and was still followed in the librettos of the early nineteenth century.The reasons for this choice are obviously to be found in the rhythmic euphony which comes from the use of solely iambic metres and in the need to distinguish the lyrical from the recitative septenarii.Then from a strictly musical point of view the choice makes it possible to differentiate the setting of the septenarius from other lyrical metres, since an anapestic septenarius would make necessary a musical incipit with a double anacrusis, as in the octonarius and the decasyllabe. The second part of the article is concerned with the musical settings of texts in septenarii. The metrical pattern of the line forces the composer to use an incipit with a simple anacrusis or on the downbeat, according to the type of iambic setenarius. There is hardly ever any choice, but in a few significant cases the composer is free to interpret the scansion as first or second type. A brief account is given of these cases.This is followed by an analysis of the rhythmical interpretations of lyrical septenarii in seven different settings of Metastasio's Olimpiade (by Caldara, Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Leo, Galuppi, Hasse and Jommelli) and the conclusions which are drawn lead to the recognition that eighteenth-century composers followed the metrical pattern very faithfully. This is also true for the three librettos by Da Ponte which were set to music by Mozart.In the first half of the nineteenth century Italian librettists were still faithful to the trading of using only lyrical iambic septenarii, and composers also continued to put the secondary or the main beat on the fourth syllabe. It was probably only in 1868 with Boito's Mefistofele that the anapaestic septenarius was reintroduced as a lyrical metre.

Giuseppina Mascari

Amongst the extensive production of Giovanni Pacini, his last work was Niccolò de' Lapi, a tracic opera in three acts preformed posthumously at the Pagliano Theatre in Florence on October 29, 1873. The composer refers to this opera on page 124 of his Memorie together with other compositions, which - in his words - «lie imprisoned like lifeless bodies on the shelves of my small musical archive». However, he does not mention the motivation for the opera, nor when it was composed. On the occasion of the performance in Florence, critics showed a certain interest in some parts of Niccolò de' Lapi, although generally considering the music old-fashioned by them.Extensive research and anlyse of letters, librettos, autographs and of reports published in the press of that time have made it possible to reconstruct the troubled story of this opera: in fact, it was originally conceived as Lidia di Brabante to be performed at the Carolino Theatre in Palermo in the Spring of 1853, but was withdrawn for reasons which remain unclear. The score went through several phases, with many changes and additions: La punizione (performed in Venice in 1854), Lidia di Bruxelles (in Bologna in 1858), Ser Matteo Vanelli and finally Niccolò de' Lapi, to which Pacini never referred in his autobiography.Therefore, the present research aims to contribute to our knowledge of Pacini's works by correcting some inaccuracies of the Memorie, and by providing important and useful data for compiling a complete catalogue of the composer's work.

Raffaele Mellace

That the wide knowledge of other writers' works for the theatre and the borrowing of textual elements from them was normal procedure for Lorenzo da Ponte and other contemporary librettists, has now been proved even for an opera like Così fan tutte, long considered to be a completely original work. This article sets up a comparison between the texts of Così fan tutte and the Marriage of Figaro and a repertory which was very popular at the time: the librettos written in the sixties and seventies of the eighteenth century. It examines in particular librettos by Chiari, the young Bertati, and Antonio Galuppi, published between 1761 and 1766 and performed in the cities which Da Ponte visited (Venice, Dresden, and Vienna). A linguistic analysis shows strong parallels with some librettos by Da Ponte. He plays with theatrical models which to his public seemed dated and affected, maintaining typical stereotypes and stylistic features, thus making an extraordinary critique of the repertory of the previous generation. In Così fan tutte, the assimilation and the transformations of the most common forms of the dramma giocoso take on a metatheatrical flavour, producing an ironical comic effect which enhances the self-conscious nature of the acting by Da Ponte's characters. Thus it becomes clear that Da Ponte followed a definite procedure (in the shadow of a very demanding Mozart), which consisted of the rewriting of well-known theatrical fragments, with a linguistic refinement of the poetic expression and a careful rethinking of the scene.

Vincent Panetta

Le toccate per strumento a tastiera di Andrea Gabrieli: un riesame

Andrea Gabrieli is rightly celebrated as one of the most significan instrumental composer of the sixteenth century, both for his own works and for his role as a mentor to younger figures, including his nephew Giovanni and the South German composer Hans Leo Hassler. Through transmission in manuscript copies and printed editions, keyboard works in the abstract genres cultivated by Andrea and his contemporaries (including the toccata and ricercare) eventually made their way north of the Alps, where they exerted a profound influence on instrumental composition throughout the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth. While Andrea's works served as important prototypes in this evolution, questions surround the provenance of several of the keyboard compositions long credited to him. This essay endeavors to estabilsh which of the twelve toccatas ascribed to Andrea in early sources and modern editions can in fact be considered genuine.Fours toccatas composed by Andrea originally appeared in the 1593 volume Intonationi d'organo di Andrea Gabrieli e di Gio: suo Nepote; the attributions of these works are beyond question, for the collection was edited by Giovanni Gabrieli himself. Seven additional toccatas, all of them taken from the seventeenth-century manuscript keyboard source known as the Turin Tablatures, were published in 1961, in a volume entitled Andrea Gabrieli, Toccate per Organo (edited by Sandro Dalla Libera). Only two of these seven compositions, however, can be confidently attributed to Andrea; the pair are transmitted also in the first volume of Girolamo Diruta's Il Transilvano (Venice, 1593). Abundant source-related and stylistic evidence supports the conclusion that the five remaining works were not composed by Andrea.All sixteen Turin volumes were copied by a single scribe between 1637 and 1640, and a substantial percentage of the pieces entered by this scribe carry no composer attribution. After manuscripts were completed, a second scribe, working at somewhat later date, drew up a table of contents, or 'Tavola', for each volume, in which he indexed the works within by composer. Earlier scholars have found the Tavole intriguing because they supply attributions for many dozens of works that were entered without composer name by the original scribe. Yet the Tavola scribe arrived at his attributions by application of an entirely arbitrary method. If, for example, he encountered an unattributed piece following a composition or compositions credited to Hans Leo Hassler, he would routinely assign the anonymous work to Hassler. If he encountered a group of unattributed compositions similarly disposed, the scribe invariably assigned each work of the series to Hassler, continuing until he reached a piece credited to another composer. While the unthinking application of this mechanical procedure at times brought correct results (albeit quite fortuitously), it also led to dozens of inaccuracies and contradictions. So it was in the present case: having arrived at a toccata carrying an ascription (incorrect, as it turns out) to Andrea (Turin G2, n. 6), followed by four unattributed compositions, the Tavola scribe simply awarded all five works in the series to Andrea.These dubious attributions are further undercut by stylistic evidence drawn from the works themselves. All include features uncharacteristic of Venetian idiom, and several in fact offer numerous details that strongly suggest correspondences to northern repertoires, and to the specific compositional vocabularies of Sweelinck, Scheidt, Sheidemann, Steigleder, and contemporaries. While they seem Italianate in certain respects, these pieces appera to represent examples of the reception and development of Venetian idiom by northerners.One further toccata ascribed to Andrea survives in a single copy in the Minoritenkonvent keyboard manuscript; this unicum has never been presented in an edition. There can be little doubt that this is a genuine work, however, for it appears to represent an alternate version of Andrea's Intonatio Del Quinto Tono from the 1593 Intonationi d'organo. The two pieces share considerable material in common, and it might even be argued that the Minoritenkonvent piece is in certain respects superior to the published Intonatio. This composition can be added with confidence to the Andrea Gabrieli worklist.In sum, it is possible to fix the number of known toccatas composed by Andrea Gabrieli at seven. These works, along with Andrea's eight published Intonationi and several short toccata-like pieces from his surviving Mass settings, constitute the full extent of our knowledge concerning his toccata style.